The Conspiracy Thread II

In my previous post of months ago The Conspiracy Thread I, I spoke about the US and the "birthers". This time I will speak about groups that control the world. A few examples include the Bilderberg group, the Freemasons and the Elders of Zion.

Little Info
Apparently we are all puppets. There are groups in this world who aim to control you. It seems they're actually successful at doing so too. I had a discussion recently with someone I know, who told me that the entire Arab Spring was orchestrated by groups, which run the US. He said these are probably the Bilderberg group and the Freemasons. The Knights Templar might also be involved.
These groups are responsible for war and peace around the world. They orchestrate everything, including the financial crisis, which made them even richer. Of course, all of this is based on nothing more but anecdotal evidence, but it doesn't stop people for believing in them. The reason for why these groups exist, why people believe they're evil villains will be explained in parts below.

The Villains
Let's first see what the conspiracy theorists get right. I will only speak about the Freemasons in detail, but they usually use very similar arguments for the other groups.
So, the Freemasons are a group of people, who originated many centuries ago. The way they work is that they have initiation rites and rituals. Most of these have been kept secret for this entire time. Few rituals are known exactly. This secretive nature is what gives rise to many theories about them, since all meetings happen behind closed doors. Membership is by invitation only and some very influential people were or are part of the society. This includes kings, celebrities, bankers, and so on. This adds to the entire message that the Freemasons actually conspire against the common people in their own interests.
It is of note that the Freemasons also have certain rules to join and the most prominent one is to express your belief in a single deity. This usually means that and polytheist or even atheist could not join the group.

The Freemasons are believed to influence the world by deciding on policies in these secret meetings. They are involved in everything including finance, wars, drugs, terrorism, coup d'etats and more.

Networking 
There are many problems with these thoughts. The first problem is that it does not make sense for a group to be able to manipulate so many people at the same time. First of all, the question is how ? For example, if I were Syrian, what would push me to protest in the streets and risk getting shot at ? According to the conspiracy theorists, the Freemasons or other groups would be manipulating me to go out there. How are they doing that ? On top of this, how would they get me, my sons, my father, my uncles and others to go out there and get shot as well ? None of this makes sense. It makes a lot more sense to go out there and protest because the Syrian government has more than a dozen police agencies which are tasked to make sure no one speaks out against the government.
The second problem I see is that there are many reasons to keep meetings secret or private. It's because they just do not want people to know what they're talking about. When I speak to a family member about personal issues, I don't want other people to know what I'm talking about. The Freemasons is basically a giant network of rich or influential people, they probably discuss business matters all the time, which are to be private.

Too Much Power
The biggest problem of them all is that if it were all true and these groups can basically mind-control the entire world, then it means they are too powerful for me. I'd much rather live my life in ignorance and be happy, enjoying life with my family, going to work and providing food for my children and so on. It just would not make any sense to fight such powerful people who can overhear anything and manipulate 500 thousand people to go out on Tahrir square all at the same time to protest a leader that might have possibly send the military to kill them all.
While Good vs. Evil fights always end up with Good overcoming Evil in fairytales; If Evil truly were that powerful, then it would be better to live our lives in peace and enjoy ourselves.

The End

Syria in Trouble

The Syrian people are being killed every day by its rulers. The government is supposed to help its people and provide for them, but instead the Syrian government is sending soldiers to attack its populace. Nothing is being done as people stay and wait passively without raising their voices. Russia and China, who are friends of the Syrian government chose to veto a UN council vote against the Syrian crackdown on the protesters.

If nothing is done, the voice of the people will fall silent to violence and bullets.
In numbers:

• 18000 people are arbitrarily detained
• 25000 people have sought refuge in neighboring countries
• 70000 people are internally displaced
• 300 people have been murdered in Homs over the last 10 days
• 5400 people have been murdered over the past year

Source: UN rights chief deplores Syria crackdown

These are a people who are fighting for the same rights you and I have in Western countries.

Help them by voicing your opinion about it to people around you, signing petitions online and raising awareness about this.

Libya for Dummies - Gadhafi's Last Stand (Part IV)

Part I
Part II
Part III
I know I haven't written anything in a long time and so I decided to go with a dramatic title. This is not to suggest that the events described below are any less important, because the last few weeks have seen the Arab Spring in Libya, turned rebel uprising, turned civil war, become one of the most historic shifts in North Africa for a very long time.

The East
Since the start of the uprising, the rebels had managed to take over the eastern side of Libya. Benghazi, the second largest city of Libya had been seized by the rebels and has since then formed a Council of important and well-respected people from the city to lead them. This has become the de-facto government of the rebels and has been recognized by several major governments in the world, especially in Europe. In the early days of the revolt, Gadhafi was sending tanks and troops to try and retake the east, especially the oil refineries in Ras Lanouf and Brega. This is what prompted the Arab League and NATO to push for a resolution against Gadhafi's government and with the early intention of stopping them from killing civilians indiscriminately. The whole NATO operation quickly devolved into an operation to remove Gadhafi from power however.

The West
The western part of Libya had been held by Gadhafi's loyalists for the major part of the uprising. A few villages on the border with Tunisia managed to keep the soldiers at bay with hit and run tactics and probably manage to even get weapons from across the border (this is speculation on my part). It's not been until quite recently the the rebels in the west have managed to push through. They managed to get ahold of Zawiyah, which is only 50km away from Tripoli (the capital of Libya) about a week ago and this has finally gotten the people in Tripoli to restart their opposition movement to Gadhafi.

Tripoli - Bastion of Gadhafi
Gadhafi has managed to hold on to Tripoli from the onset of the protests months ago. For the past two days however, things have changed. Whole quarters of Tripoli have been taken by the opposition and they have apparently even managed to keep these from loyalist troops.
The image below, taken from www.juancole.com, shows exactly what I mean.

The orange areas are the ones under rebel control. If you're still reading this, you might want to head over to that website. He is more knowledgeable about it than I am. If all you want is a basic overview, keep reading here.

If Tripoli falls, that would most likely mean the end of Gadhafi. If he's not yet in hiding, that's probably where he would be soon enough. Rebels from the east and the west are going towards Tripoli to aid the rebels in the city. If all goes well, this should be as bloodless as possible and Tripoli should join the Council in Benghazi and slowly form a new government in the next few months to a year.
The only thing I fear is that Gadhafi will stay in hiding and plot terror strikes against the people of Libya, which would keep Libya in a state of peril for a long time.

Let's hope everything turns out for the better.

Tiny update: Map of Tripoli
The map shows hourly updates from residents and from the "Freedom Forces" in Tripoli.

Royal Wedding

I really don't get all this hype about the wedding. I would understand that people  would watch it, that makes some sense, as they're public figures and would probably become quite influential in the future, but it's been going on for the past 4 months. It seems nothing else is going on in the world except for this wedding.


This is mad, because some of the biggest changes in the century (short as it is for now) might be happening right now. The Middle Eastern Arab Spring is far from over. In Syria, people are being killed on a daily basis fighting for the same rights we take for granted every single day. In Libya, the rebels have managed to retake parts of a city that has been under siege for the past two months.
All I hear about, however, is this wedding. 


If you think all is but gloom and doom in the world and you think the Royal Wedding would be a distraction, why not read about Israel being the first country in the world to launch a nationwide electric grid for cars ?
Or as much as you might hate Lady Gaga, you can read about her donating $1 million to charity?

Instead you are overexcited about a wedding of people who are taking your money away if you pay taxes in Britain for an overindulged ceremony which will last several hours and not achieve anything more than spending millions of dollars for some hand-waving like the Queen.

End rant!

Libya for Dummies ( Part I )

Just want to start by saying this is all from my point of view and I may be completely wrong. Of course, you might like it if you have very little knowledge on the issue. I will also address some common issues people raise and why I believe them to be right or wrong.

I started writing this and it has started getting quite long so I will release this in parts. This is part 1 out of an unknown number of parts for now. If you have any corrections, please post in the comments. This is quite a simplified version of events though, so do take that into account.

Background

Libya is a country in North Africa. It has a small population of 6 million people (minus the people who have fled in the past month or so). The people in Libya are relatively well-educated with the highest literacy rate in the region and with a big student population. Oil is one of the major resources in the country and is a big issue in this conflict too.

The population is split into many tribes who live in different regions. For example the leader of Libya, Gadhafi, comes from the Gadhadhfa (fixed, thanks to PJ) tribe. (The spelling of these tribes in English will probably be different everywhere) Each of these tribes usually have allegiances to the other tribes which sometimes are decades-old and some tribes on the other hand flip their allegiances to whoever is giving them the best options at that time. This is part of the difficulty in understanding the conflict in Libya right now and one of the most underestimated problem I see right now. More on this later too.

Gadhafi

The leader of Libya came to power after a coup more than 40 years ago against the king. The reasons don't really matter for the purpose of this blog entry, but the whole subject is quite interesting and intricate.

Basically, Gadhafi is a military man and with the help of other military men he succeeded in deposing the old king and has thus declared himself ruler of Libya.

For years Gadhafi had been shun by most of the western world and he has also supported terrorists and even (allegedly) staged terrorist attacks.

This was until 2008 when both the western countries and Gadhafi sought closer relationships, the embargo against him was dropped and Gadhafi started cooperating with the west.

In all this time, Gadhafi has also been a central figure in African politics however and as one of the founding members of the African Union and as a visionary for a United States of Africa commands a lot of respect from some of the African countries (especially from other dictators).

Gadhafi has also used a great deal of the oil revenue in developing Libya's infrastructure and social system, whilst keeping his 'friends' loyal. He also invested a lot into other African countries and established trade relationships with most of them.

Why Now?

The protesters started protesting shortly after the protesters in the other Middle Eastern countries in what is now known as the Arab Spring. These protests started when a Tunisian immolated himself which triggered an outcry in Tunisia, which ended with the ouster of the dictator Ben Ali. This then quickly motivated others in countries with similar conditions to start protesting with Egypt carrying a big part of the media with it.

Libyans' protests started small and grew larger even though the government tried cracking down on them. After a certain point some protesters took arms against the government with the help of some general who apparently also managed to convince some of his troops to join his side. This meant that the protesters who started out as a mostly civilian and peaceful discourse became armed and dangerous.

So What Happened?

The newly-coined 'rebels' manage to take over most of Eastern Libya and a few cities and strongholds in Western and Southern Libya, while Gadhafi managed to keep a hold on the rest. Since Libya is still quite tribal, most cities loyal to Gadhafi are also loyal to the Gadhadhfa (fixed), while all the other tribes probably joined the opposition or have tried staying neutral.

At the same time, most foreigners have left the country except for armed mercenaries hired by Gadhafi to help reinforce his forces due to the desertion of others. These mercenaries are mainly from Mali and Niger.

So, the rebels managed to capture large swaths of land especially Benghazi and Misrata, the second and third-largest cities after Tripoli, the capital. These were very important and fighting still persists now in Misrata. The rebels had also managed to capture several oil ports, such as Brega and Ras Lanouf (forgive the spelling of all of these) which were very important strategically as they would not allow Gadhafi to keep funding his troops if he lost control of his major resource, oil.

However Gadhafi started employing his Air Force and soon enough managed to repel the rebels from most of Western Libya, except for Misrata and managed to send his troops further to the East.

This was when the UN jumped in at the request of the rebels and with the agreement of the Arab League and most NATO countries. The UN authorized any measures necessary for protection of civilian lives, which is a very broad mission statement.

Gadhafi's Air Force Crushed

Very quickly NATO managed to destroy all of Gadhafi's aerial capabilities. This meant that the rebels did not have to fear air strikes any longer and started advancing again, only to get hit by Gadhafi's armored division (tanks), this basically went on for a while with the rebels gaining ground and then the loyalists getting it back.

Now we are at a point where we could say there is a kind of stalemate. The rebels control the East (with most oil ports), the loyalists control the West and parts of the South (with some oil too), barring Misrata, the last rebel stronghold in the West. Whenever the rebels advance they  get pounded by the armor, whenever the loyalists advance they get pounded by the NATO + Qatar's aerial bombardments.


Part II can be found on the following link:
Libya for Dummies ( Part II )